


The Memorial Sea

by ArmIa



Category: Metal Slug (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, During Canon, Gen, Military Jargon, Military Ranks, Moral Dilemmas, Prisoner of War, Rescue Missions, Strained Friendships, Terrorism, War, War Crimes, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24983050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmIa/pseuds/ArmIa
Summary: During the decisive battle of the First Morden War, a rookie special forces operator turned legendary war hero is faced with a difficult choice.Set during the final mission ofMetal Slug: Super Vehicle-001. The first installment of a largely canon compliant retelling of the events leading up toMetal Slug 2.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Final Attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “War is delightful to those who have not yet experienced it.”  
> — Erasmus

“Incoming!”

The explosion rocks the SV-001’s frame, snapping the cockpit to one side like the head of a boxer struck in the jaw by a right hook. The 100mm armor plating is among the toughest ever produced, cast in a stratum of depleted uranium, ceramic and reinforced polymers, but it has already endured more than its fair share of punishment. The outer shell is blackened by scorch marks, pock-marked with dents from the bullets that didn’t penetrate it and ragged entry wounds from the ones that did. 

The one-man tank’s sole occupant grimaces as the instrument panels strobe bright-red warnings at him, a keening alarm struggling to make itself heard over the death knell of groaning hydraulics. 

_ Sorry, girl. You had a good run, but this is where you and I part ways. _

He’s half-in and half-out of the hatch when he hears the short, sharp report of a shotgun blast. His partner has just killed the guy who killed his tank. 

“You alright, Chief?”

Marco sees himself reflected in the black sheen of Tarma’s trademark sunglasses. The face of a killer glares accusingly back at him, and for a moment he wonders for a moment what happened to the bright-eyed kid whose smiling face he used to see in the bathroom mirror every morning.

Marco Rossi is twenty-three years old, and he has already seen more of war than most men would see in three or four lifetimes. Like the Rebel who died fumbling for another grenade, the blonde-haired college boy from Idaho is just another casualty that nobody else will remember.

“I’m good,” he says, and mostly means it. “The Slug’s a write-off, though.”

Tarma eyes the crippled tank nervously as a faint red glow begins to emanate from the cockpit. “Don't these things have a self-destruct-?”

“Yeah, they do. C’mon.”

The muffled thump of the fuel tank is followed by a thunderous roar as whatever is left in the ammunition battery detonates. Marco silently thanks the Slug- not just for saving him from the bomb, but also for waiting until he and his partner were at a safe distance before exploding. The self-destruct protocol is notoriously temperamental, owing largely to its being hastily added to more recent models after a number of earlier builds were looted from government storage facilities. 

He tries not to wonder if the occupants of the crippled vehicles they saw on their way here were as fortunate as him, forcing himself not to imagine being trapped inside a mechanical coffin with only the blaring self-destruct warning to keep you company in your final moments. That’s no way for a soldier to die. 

Marco isn’t looking to die any time soon. Like any soldier worth their salt he’s prepared for the eventuality, but given the choice he’d like to die on his feet, with a weapon in his hand. He’d like to go down fighting, content in the knowledge that he took a few of the enemy with him. The volatile nature of the SV-001’s firepower makes it a double-edged sword, and a badly damaged tank can easily be purposed into an ad-hoc kamikaze if a daring operator engages the forward gear before bailing out, but he’s only attempted that particular maneuver once. 

Desperate times, and all that.

The two commandos throw themselves onward, hurdling dead bodies and split-open sandbags. Behind them, the waves lap ineffectually at the shoreline as if in a squeamish, half-hearted effort to clean the rough-hewn stone. Before them lies the still-fresh aftermath of a battle that they were late to. The blood beneath their feet is gritty and coarse with sand. 

Many of the corpses are uniformed, the fabric blackened with heat and browned with filth so it becomes impossible to distinguish between slain allies and fallen foes. Only the mangled wreckage of another SV-001 provides a clue as to what happened; the treads have been fouled by an iron bar, thrust beneath it in an act of suicidal desperation that can only come from someone who believes he will die a martyr for his cause. The bullet-shredded corpses around it are those of Rebel soldiers who closed in on it like hyenas surrounding a wounded animal, finishing it off with hammers, bricks, fuel-soaked rags, and whatever else they could use to strike at its vulnerable components.

Marco counts at least six bullet-riddled bodies, plus a charred, mutilated pile of remains that used to be the SV-001’s operator. The poor bastard must have either tried to abandon his immobilized tank or been dragged from the cockpit as the flames consumed it, then brutally executed by stabbing or bludgeoning in lieu of a quick, clean gunshot to the head. 

To the Rebellion, six or seven casualties in exchange for one probably seems like a pretty good trade-off. To him, it seems a senseless waste of life on both sides.

More Rebel troops charge to meet them, their knuckles white around knives and makeshift explosives. Their formation is sloppy and undisciplined, their aggression unfocused, their tactics too reliant on superior numbers to realize that meeting their enemy head-on is suicide.

They have been outnumbered ever since the war began, but they will never be outgunned.

The AR-10, affectionately referred to as the “over-and-under” by the commandos of the P.F. Squad, combines an automatic rifle with an underslung launcher that can fire a wide variety of ammunition, ranging from conventional grenades and shotgun shells to incendiary-effect rounds. Though the Rebellion’s coup d’etat has temporarily stalled the government’s weapon research and development, many proposals for new types of ammunition have been put forward- miniature homing missiles, a directed-energy beam, spherical antipersonnel mines with a rubberized shell that could hypothetically be bounced at enemies behind cover- but Marco and Tarma have already proven that more conventional fare is devastating in the right hands.

Tarma waits for the Rebels to close some of the distance before firing his shotgun. At mid to long range, buckshot can shred flesh and bone like wet tissue paper; at close quarters, a squeeze of the trigger does not kill so much as it causes a target to simply cease to exist, reducing them to a fine mist of gore. 

The spectacle makes some of the Rebels think twice, but it is far too late, and they pay dearly for their hesitation. 

Marco shoulders his rifle and lets off a sustained burst of full metal jacketed 7.62mm heavy machine gun rounds. The results are instantaneous and terrible to behold. A pile of sandbags burst like water balloons, and so does the head of an unfortunate Rebel who picked the wrong moment to pop his head up from behind cover. 

Some of the Rebels try to retreat, their resolve ground down to panic on the whetstone of brutality that has tempered Marco’s own into a razor point. Many more hold their ground. All of them are cut down, granted only the choice of being shot in the chest or in the back.

Tarma grins at Marco as the last body falls, a thin rictus that peels back from his teeth in a way that puts him in mind of a wild animal. His forehead is slick and shiny with sweat, and yet somehow his hair remains impeccably coiffed.

“We’ve got him, boss. He’s got his back to the water. There’s nowhere left for him to run.”

The Rebellion’s stronghold looms before them, a flat plain of tarmac fortified by a network of watchtowers and sturdy metal fences built around a rampart of coastal rock wall. Sporadic gunfire, explosions, and the screams of the dead and dying emanate from within the walls of the compound as anti-aircraft fire and artillery airbursts brighten the grey skies overhead.

“Sounds like the rest of the Slugs are already cleaning house,” Tarma observes. There’s a series of muffled thumps in the distance, and great gouts of red and orange flame spew skywards, leaving coils of inky black smoke in their wake. “That must’ve been the fuel dumps going up.”

“Intel says we’ve got prisoners unaccounted for,” Marco reminds him, motioning for him to grab the other side of the entry point he’s flanking- a section of the perimeter wall that was beaten down by incoming fire and then flattened by the treads of a tank. “So check your fire.”

“Yeah, roger that.”

Tarma produces another handful of shotgun shells, thumbing them into the breech. The two men hunch over their weapons, their silhouettes mirroring one another.

“Head on a swivel.”

“I got it.” Tarma pushes his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose with his middle and index finger. “Ready on your go.”

“Take right. Go!”

“Sweeping right-”

Marco sweeps left. Tarma sweeps right. Marco hears the thunderous report of Tarma’s shotgun, and a shrill scream. His sector is clear. He spins on his heel, rifle up and scanning for a target. 

Tarma is on the ground, wrestling with a Rebel who’s trying to drive a knife into his chest with both hands. The man’s helmet lies on the ground next to Tarma’s shotgun. The whites of his eyes are pink. His jaw is clenched, his lips peeled back to expose his teeth. It looks like a smile in the way a chimpanzee looks like it’s smiling when it bares its teeth as a warning. Tarma’s sunglasses are askew, one cracked lens sitting below his eye. The Rebel’s reflection watches with frenzied anticipation as he hammers his fist into the pommel of the knife.

Marco settles the sights of his rifle on the Rebel’s head and squeezes the trigger. Nothing happens. The point of the knife inches closer and closer to Tarma’s chest. Tarma’s hands are around the Rebel’s wrists, trembling with the exertion of holding the knife away. Gravity is not on his side. Marco pulls his sidearm, racks the slide, and squeezes the trigger. 

The pistol bucks in his hand. The heavy .50 AE rounds the weapon is chambered for can penetrate thin-skinned vehicles and body armor with ease, but the weighty, cumbersome frame of the weapon compensates for the recoil that would make the barrel jump skywards in the hands of a novice. 

Marco has trained extensively with the pistol. He knows exactly how much recoil to expect. The bullet goes exactly where he wants it to: right between the Rebel’s eyes and out the back of his head, taking a generous helping of mulched brain matter and shattered skull with it.

“Clear?” Tarma grunts, heaving the limp weight of the Rebel’s corpse off of him.

“Clear,” Marco echoes, helping his friend to his feet.

Tarma adjusts his sunglasses. “Thanks, boss.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Dude just came outta nowhere. I didn’t even-”

“It’s all good. Let’s keep moving.”

They find a prisoner amongst the bodies scattered about the compound- alive, although one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Gaunt and emaciated, the only thing keeping him upright is the post that he’s bound to. Stripped of his uniform, his skin is stretched over his bones like a skeleton that’s been dipped in wax. His hair hangs past his shoulders, lank and matted; his beard trails down almost to his stomach, his chin against his chest. 

“Got an unknown over here.”

Tarma’s words stir the prisoner. His chin slowly lifts, gazing blearily through his own hair as his lips slowly begin to move. 

“Son of a bitch, he’s still alive!”

“Ca-Cadmus…”

“Is he a civvie or one of ours?” 

“Does it matter?”

“Private…” the prisoner mumbles, staring at nothing. “One six…s-seven one one…nine three seven…”

Marco and his partner share a look of grim understanding as the significance of the slurred mantra becomes clear. Half-starved, half-dead, half-mad as a result, the poor bastard is giving them the only thing he believes he’s permitted to divulge: name, rank and service number.

“Hold on, buddy,” Marco murmurs. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

Marco makes short work of the ropes, using the swift, precise strokes of an expert knife fighter. The ropes aren’t even fastened particularly tight; if the prisoner were any more emaciated, they probably would have slipped right off of him. 

“Easy, easy-”

“Cadmus. Private. One six seven w-  _ wuh- _ ”

He all but falls into their arms as the ropes go slack. He can’t possibly weigh more than a hundred pounds.

“It’s alright,” Marco says, easing him to the ground with Tarma’s help. “It’s okay. We’re friendlies.”

The words stir the prisoner, interrupting the broken record of his recital, and for a brief moment he looks like a human being again.

“Thank you!” he croaks. The words are scarcely more than a whisper. His eyes are wet but his throat is dry. Tarma hands him a canteen of water, but his trembling fingers can’t get the top off. Marco unscrews it, lifts it to the man’s lips and tilts the contents steadily into his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobs like a yo-yo.

“Take it slow,” Tarma advises him with a small smile. “You’re gonna get cramps.”

The man coughs. Water droplets glisten in his beard as his gaze sharpens, no longer just looking at his rescuers but seeing them.

“Thank you, sir. You’re…you’re with the PF Squad, right?”

“Yeah.”

Unable to stand to attention, he manages to snap off a weak salute from where he’s sitting. “Private Cadmus, sir. 1st Company, Iron Cavalrymen.”

Tarma gives a nod to set him at ease. Marco’s brow furrows. “You’re from the Third Infantry Division?”

“Yes, sir. Our unit got split up at Kathehirt on approach to the motor pool. I don’t think…”

His voice trails off. Marco’s memories of frostbitten corpses half-covered in snow that glistened pink with spilled blood fills in the gaps. 

Roughly one hundred and fifty or so men of the Third Infantry Division went into the Kathehirt Valley, assaulting what they thought was a weakly defended section of the Rebellion’s line and aiming to disable their operations in the region by sabotaging the motor pool. 

Of that number, Marco freed about ten or eleven who were captured. The rest were killed as much by poor intelligence as they were by gunfire, for the motor pool was defended by a single man. 

That man was Sergeant Allen O’Neil.

Marco feels a chill that has nothing to do with the coastal breeze as he remembers confronting O’Neil, and comforts himself with the thought that he’s dead. For a moment, he considers relaying that information to Private Cadmus before thinking better of it. It won’t bring back however many friends he must have lost that day.

Cadmus swallows thickly. “I wanna go home, sir. Are we going home? We’re going home, aren’t we, sir?”

He directs the question first to Marco, and then to Tarma as if seeking reassurance from a parent and hoping that one will give an answer he wants to hear. Marco nods.

“That’s right, Private. You’re going home. Tarma, get him back to the DZ and call for casevac.”

Tarma looks sharply at him. “What about you?”

“Morden’s still out there.”

“And you're going after him by yourself?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Tarma scoffs. “You’re crazy.”

“We missed the son of a bitch back in Ronbertburg. We’re not going to miss him here.”

“You can’t go alone, man.”

“Someone’s got to.”

Tarma shakes his head. “It’s suicide.”

“Someone’s got to stop him.”

“And you’re gonna win this war all by yourself, is that it?”

“The war’s already won, but if Morden gets away it’ll all have been for nothing.”

“Marco-”

“Fall back, Sergeant Roving. That’s an order.”

Tarma’s lip curls. “Oh, you’re seriously pulling rank on me right now?”

Marco glares at his reflection in Tarma’s sunglasses. “If that's what it takes, yeah.”

“Fine,” Tarma says, after about three seconds of glaring back at him. “Fine.”

“You have your orders.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it,” Tarma snaps, adding “ _Dick_ ,” under his breath, not quite quiet enough for Marco not to hear.

He helps Cadmus to his feet, hooking his arm around his shoulder and all but lifting him off the ground as they set off back the way the commandos came, but draws up short and turns back to Marco.

“Hey, Boss?”

“What is it?”

Tarma manages a weak smile. “Come back alive, alright?”

Marco’s mouth twitches, but he says nothing. He’s not in the habit of making promises he can’t keep.


	2. Mission All Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”  
> — Ernest Hemingway

“Marco Rossi for PF Command, come in.”

“Reading you loud and clear,” a voice crackles over the radio. “Send traffic.”

Marco surveys the devastation before him. The wreckage of the downed helicopter is still belching grey-white smoke, the rotors chopped down to mangled stubs after they dashed themselves against the unyielding blacktop.

Morden either fell or threw himself from the crippled bird as it pitched out of the sky, screaming all the way down until the ground caught him, shushing him to silence as his bones splintered and organs ruptured. Blood streams from his mouth, nose and ears, mingling with the discharge of half a dozen bullet wounds and forming an inch-deep pool around him.

Marco wonders how quickly Morden would have died from the fall. Dull, morbid curiosity is all he can muster. He hasn’t the strength nor the inclination to hope that the bastard died slowly and in pain. 

Marco has mourned the loss of innocent lives, vowed to avenge the deaths of his comrades, and even regretted the perfectly avoidable deaths of enemies, but he will never rejoice in a death. Morden was a vicious, evil son of a bitch, and he got what he deserved, but nothing about this is cause for celebration. It’s all so senseless. Such a damn waste.

He takes a deep breath.

“SitRep is as follows. HVT-1 has been neutralized. We’re going to need casevac for multiple wounded including myself, my XO and a recovered prisoner, over.”

“Interrogative: what’s the HVT’s status?”

“He’s KIA.”

“Lieutenant, please confirm: Donald Morden is KIA? Over.” 

Marco exhales hard through his nose. 

“That’s affirmative, PF Command. Multiple gunshot wounds, and he took a dive out of his helo from about twenty feet up. What’s happening with that evac, over?”

“Stand by. We’ll reroute some air assets, over.”

When Marco speaks again, it is through a clenched jaw. “Command, be advised; I’ve got multiple wounded here, myself included.”

“Understood, Lieutenant. Air assets are on their way.”

The voice on the other end of the radio sounds positively bored. Marco’s trembling fingers whiten around the radio’s plastic casing, and for a moment he has to fight the urge to dash the thing against the ground as he did Morden’s getaway bird.

At that moment, Morden stirs. 

He makes a quiet, strangled sound that’s halfway between a grunt and a gasp- not unusual for a corpse, as anyone who has seen as much death as him would doubtless know- but then he moves, and Marco almost wants to dismiss it as a spasm, the twitch of a nervous system that has not yet accepted the finality of death, until his fingertips scrape the ground, forming into fists and pushing, unmistakably attempting to rise from where he’s fallen. 

“Son of a bitch!”

“Didn’t copy that, over-”

“Command, the HVT is still alive! He’s still alive!”

“Copy that. Stand by. Casevac bird is inbound, over.” 

The voice on the other end of the radio maintains that nasally quality, but there’s a note of urgency, however faint, there that wasn’t present before. 

Before he knows what’s come over him, he’s hurled the radio to the ground. The heavy sole of his combat boot finishes what the asphalt started, crumpling the casing and squashing the delicate components within. Then he’s seizing Morden by the scruff of his uniform jacket, pressing the still-hot muzzle of his pistol into the back of his neck. 

“Get up,” Marco snarls. “Up, you piece of shit! Get on your knees!”

Morden’s one good eye is tinged reddish-pink, his eyepatch askew. His uniform is scorched and dirtied, greyed with ash, damp with his own blood. The front of the dress jacket is perforated not just with bullet holes, but the smaller, ragged tears where a chest full of shiny medals has been torn away. His rank slide and insignia, his butter bars and campaign decorations for meritorious conduct in the same army he turned his back on, are gone. He wears no Purple Heart for the eye he lost in the bombing of Central Park, nor the coveted marksmanship badges that his background as a hobbyist hunter earned him long before he decided to take up military service. 

The only identifying marks his uniform now bears are a red armband emblazoned with a black X, set in a circle that was once white but is now as filthy as the rest of his jacket. The material is tattered and forlorn, but remains fastened in place with a safety pin.

Marco sees red. He lowers himself to a crouch before Morden, one hand roughly gripping his chin while the other one holds his pistol beneath it.

“Look at me. Look at me!”

Morden is either unwilling or unable to comply. His jaw hangs slack. Blood trickles between the gaps in his teeth, clotting in his mustache, and seeps through Marco’s fingers as he squeezes. He feels like he’s addressing a piece of overripe fruit.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” he whispers, his voice suddenly spiking from a low hiss to a shout. _“Do you?!”_

The noise gets Morden’s attention, even if the words mean nothing to him. His mouth moves soundlessly. He dribbles blood around the muzzle of Marco’s pistol, teeth scraping against hot metal.

Half a pound of trigger pressure. That’s all it would take. Less effort than it takes to smile.

Marco hesitates.

“Chief!”

Tarma’s voice. Behind him. He lays his finger flat against the slide of his pistol. A moment later, he pulls it out of Morden’s mouth.

“Where’s Cadmus?”

“Casevac’d. Where’s Morden? You get him?”

“Yeah.”

He stands, his hunched silhouette no longer obscuring the limp silhouette drooling blood from half a dozen different holes. Tarma makes a face.

“Jeez, the guy’s leaking like a sieve.” 

“He’s not going to make it.”

“Yeah, he is. C’mon, let’s get his ass to the DZ.”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“What?”

“I said he’s not going to make it.” 

Marco racks the slide of his pistol and chambers a new round. Tarma’s grimace shrinks to an apprehensive frown, his eyes widening behind his shades.

“Chief? Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

Tarma has suddenly positioned himself between Marco and Morden. The stamped metal of the receiver bites into his skin.

“Get out my way, man.”

“Hey, look-”

“He’s not going to-”

“Are you serious?” 

“Come on.”

“Come on?! _You_ come on!”

Tarma shoves him in the chest, hard enough to make him stagger backwards and leaving a reddish-brown handprint on his white undershirt. He takes another step forward. Thinks about taking a swing at him. Thinks better of it.

“One more bullet wound. That’s all it’d take. What’s one more bullet wound?”

Tarma shakes his head, slowly. “Dude.”

“Nobody has to know.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?”

“He’s already bleeding to death.”

“Dude!”

“What?”

Tarma takes a few seconds to answer Marco’s glare with anything beyond an accusing scowl of his own, as though he can’t believe Marco even has to ask.

“You’re seriously going to execute an unarmed prisoner-”

“Just like the Rebels did in Gerhardt City?”

Tarma hesitates for a moment. It’s a low blow, but the time for fighting fair has long since passed. 

“That wasn’t- that was different. Those guys might not have had guns but they had knives, bombs, freaking _tanks-_ ”

“I meant what they did in the city,” Marco clarifies, and his voice is as dull as a knife. “The people living there, the ones who couldn’t evacuate in time and wouldn’t just bend over for Morden’s-”

“Oh, what, so we’re just supposed to lower ourselves to their level?”

“Spare me the moral high ground crap. This is war.”

“Even war has a high ground, man! If we don’t stay on it, we’re not soldiers, we’re just murderers! We’re no better than him!”

Tarma gestures at Morden, blowing bubbles into his own blood, scratching at the ground like a senile dog. Marco’s pistol follows Tarma’s fingers. The sights return to Morden’s head. “This isn’t murder.”

Tarma positions his gut between the business end of the gun and the man who he and his partner came here to kill. “Uh, yeah it is!”

“This is justice.”

“We aren’t assassins!”

“It needs to be done.”

“No, you do this and they’ll make a martyr out of him. All you’ll be doing is proving him right!”

“He needs to be punished for-”

“No, he needs to be tried in a military court and found guilty, alright? Which he will. He’s going to rot in prison for the rest of his miserable life and live with the knowledge that he failed. That’s what he deserves, right?”

Tarma’s face is inches from Marco’s own. His finger is still on the trigger of his sidearm. Then Tarma’s hand is on his own, steering the gun away. 

“Save your ammo, man. He’s not worth another bullet.”

Tarma doesn’t let go of the gun, but after a moment, Marco does.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Okay.”

“You cool?”

“I’m cool.” 

“Okay.”

Tarma flips the pistol, offers it to Marco butt-first. After a few seconds, Marco accepts it.

It feels lighter in his hands.

They stand in silence for what could be seconds or minutes, before the prop of a helicopter swells from a distant staccato to a thunderous pounding above them. The rotor wash sends flakes of burned detritus pinwheeling around them.

“Casevac’s here,” Tarma observes.

“Yeah,” Marco agrees, nodding distantly at the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> “War is delightful to those who have not yet experienced it.”  
> — Erasmus


End file.
